The present invention relates to apportioning a shared computer resource.
In computer systems, it is commonplace for multiple processes to require access to a shared resource which is capable of servicing only a single process during a time interval. Such shared resources include, for example, central processing units, memory, as well as other devices. A technique for controlling access to the shared resource is necessary to ensure effective use of the shared resource.
In a known method, each of the multiple processes are assigned a relative priority which is used as the basis for apportioning access to the shared resource. Such a technique of allocating a priority to each of multiple processes, as well as apportioning the access of each process to the shared resource often results in less than optimal utilization of the shared resource, e.g., starvation of low-priority processes.